I am sick of the endless, deceiptful PR marriage of war and sport that bubbles to the surface on ANZAC Day like some malignant marketing orgasm.

As far as I can tell war and sport have only three things in common: they involve two sides wearing different uniforms and led by stupid but overpaid men; there’s usually a winner and a loser; and obsessed males buy books about both of them. If you watched any sports coverage on ANZAC Day you’d think the two were exactly the same. The broadcast of today’s AFL game started at 12 noon but the game itself doesn’t begin until 2.40pm. The preceding 160 minutes is 10 per cent football and 90 per cent thinly drawn analogies of war and sport, combat and games, hamstrings and minefields, sportsmen and warriors. Stories of AFL/VFL players who served in war because footy players and soldiers are, like, great heroes.

Let’s get a few things straight:

Sport is NOT war. Apart from nonsensical risky sports like high-speed motor racing, hardly anyone dies playing sport.

Running thoughtlessly into a pack of thick-necked footballers is not the same as running at a machine-gun nest.

In sport you might do a knee or rupture your Achilles tendon; in war you might have your head shot off.

Though it’s sometimes used otherwise, sport is apolitical; war is a continuation of politics by other means.

Footballers and soldiers are not the same thing, goddamit. Commemorate our war veterans and celebrate our sporting heroes - but don’t try to equate the latter with the former.

And a final question for the AFL: if the football community has always loved our returned soldiers, respected their effort in wartime and applauded players who served their country in war, etc. then why did the VFL competition continue through both world wars? Surely it should have been suspended as a mark of respect and to allow those brave footballing gladiators to serve Australia in war, as was done with the FA Cup…

And with 16 simple words former foreign minister Alexander Downer finally tells the truth.

THE decision by President George Bush to overthrow the regime of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and the decisions of the British and Australian governments to provide military support to the Americans, will always be controversial. It was, nevertheless, the right decision.

If only Downer and the shameful government of which he was an integral part could’ve been upfront with the people who elected them five years ago.

ps/- And before any RWDBs get started: YES I think that Hussein was a murderous bastard who heartily deserved his eventual fate. YES I think that Iraq deserved better than his regime and that if the fledging democracy that is slowly beginning to take shape there blossoms the world will be a better place for it. YES I think coalition troops in Iraq are fighting a noble cause and I wish them the very best. BUT the way that our government, along with the governments of the USA and the UK, went about selling this invasion to their electorates undermines the very democracy we are supposedly trying to spread.

I noticed this classic piece of World War I propaganda while checking out Darrin (sic) Hodges’ Anglo-Australian National Community Council website yesterday.

Hodges, it must be said, is an intriguing fellow. Legend has it he founded the AANCC after being denied membership to the Canberra chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, on the basis that he was too ignorant and mean-spirited, and that he spelled “abbows” incorrectly on his application form.

This post isn’t about Hodges, though — if I wanted to discuss excruciating and embarrassing turds, I’d make an appointment to see a proctologist. Rather, it concerns an interesting tale about the creator of this propaganda poster, Australian artist Frederick William Leist (1873–1945).

Fred Leist rose to prominence in the 1890s as an illustrator for The Bulletin and the Sydney Mail. He moved to London in the early 1900s to pursue his painting career, and found some success there.

But like most artists, Leist found that to make ends meet he had to supplement his art with commissions and odd jobs — and his oddest job of all was designing recruiting posters during World War I.

The poster above was his last, due to a little-known misunderstanding.

In 1916 the War Office commissioned a piece from Leist entitled Australian Chivalry. The creative brief for the poster took the form of a telegraph, which — due to Leist’s experience and exemplary record with the Office — dispensed with the usual detailed instructions and simply requested a “depiction of Digger with crusader; tone more gay than gruesome”.

The wording proved most unfortunate: the War Office couldn’t have known that Leist was well ahead of his time lexicologically; likewise, Leist couldn’t have known that the term “gay” wouldn’t come into popular usage as a euphemism for homosexual for several decades.

An understandably confused Leist, who felt somewhat indebted to the War Office, didn’t want to appear foolish by requesting clarification; so he set about creating three slightly different paintings that would work either as a series or as individual posters, depending on which option best reflected his employer’s concept.

The staunchly conservative War Office was mortified by the posters Leist submitted, but a looming print deadline meant recommissioning the job was not an option. They reluctantly chose the least questionable of the three, paid Leist and never sought his services again.

The complete set was thought to have been lost or destroyed, but as luck would have it was recently discovered on my PC. CLICK HERE to view it.